He Doesn’t Understand a Single Thing!

After dinner that day, Gu Feidi went back to the Pavilion of Infinite Knowledge. Su Yang followed Di Ling back to the Lively Spring Garden, and he immediately took out the Blooming of the Nine Glacials to clarify his questions.

Because Di Ling was female, he could not enter her chamber, so they sat down at the stone table under the blossoming tree in the courtyard.

“What do you not understand?” She asked lightly.

He stared at her, dazed with unfocused eyes and unable to describe his own problems on the spot.

He suddenly realised that his current situation was like bringing a copy of the English test in a college entrance examination to the teacher for questions. The teacher asked which question he could not do—and in fact, he just learned and recognised the twenty-six English letters of the alphabet.

‘What do you not understand’

He didn’t understand a single thing!

After staying silent for a long time, he had no choice but to confess, “...I don’t understand all of it.”

“All of it?” She frowned.

He nodded, “Yes…I don’t understand any of it.”

Being even more puzzled, Di Ling inquired, “Since you have practiced the Six Night Flower Burial to lay a solid foundation for your mental skill, practicing advanced mental skills is just to add a change to your existing internal energy circulation. As long as the skills complement each other, eventually, all the pieces will fall into place. As they say, where water flows, a canal is formed. How are you not understanding?”

Very good, the teacher thought he had learned the basic question, now to ask the harder question.

He decided to make up nonsense.

“The year I practiced Six Night Flower Burial, I didn’t practice by reading the manual.” He solemnly recited this with a straight face, “Someone read the manual out loud and instructed me with their internal force.”

“You learned from words and examples?” She concluded in surprise, “But if you must learn this the same way, that person would learn the same mental skill as you…I never practiced the Blooming of the Nine Glacial so I can’t personally teach you this way. However, what does this have to do with you not understanding the manual?”

He stayed silent for a moment before saying, “I don’t know how to read, and I never had to read a book before…”

She listened to him dazedly, waiting for him to continue.

He confessed, “I only recognise the simpler words, I don’t know how to…comprehend this斷句 is to pause at appropriate points in reading aloud unpunctuated writing or to punctuate. Ancient writings are unpunctuated and Su Yang is having a hard time making the pauses in reading. It doesn’t help that in modern Chinese, they use Simplified Chinese. As someone who reads in Traditional Chinese, it is a struggle for me to read Simplified Chinese sometimes as some of the words look completely different from their counterparts. manual.”

Her already dazed expression suddenly became blank.

Having nothing else to lose, he summoned up the courage to continue,“That’s why I need someone to read the manual for me to understand.”

“Why did Shizun request me to guide you…” She murmured to herself.

He cheered internally, That’s right, I successfully derailed the high and mighty Di Shijie from getting angry.

She went on, “...She knew that I am not good at reading either.”

Su Yang: “???”

With a sigh, her gaze turned distant, like looking at something far away.

“I have been blind since I was a child, so I read very slowly.” She said this neither fast nor slow, “And I need to be in a completely silent environment to read. That’s why I cannot recite the words in the manual for you.”

Su Yang: “...”

…Wait, what did she say?

Extremely dumbfounded, he exclaimed with wide eyes, “You can’t see anything?!”

How could this be?!

This young lady’s words and behaviour were clearly indistinguishable from ordinary people!

Furthermore, “I am blind therefore I read very slowly” was simply a sentence that contradicts itself!

A faint smile appeared on her lips. “All living things in the world have a sound, including paper and ink. If you listen carefully, you can recognise the handwriting. It’s just that I am not good at listening to words, so I read very slowly. I can only read two to three pages in a time period.”

Su Yang: “…”

This was already beyond humanity’s capacity alright!! 

Without care for his inner turmoil, she still struggled to decipher Shizun’s original message. Looking puzzled, she hesitantly said, “Shizun asked me to teach you at the selection, she must have an intention…”

Stimulated by her sentence, the cogs in his brain also began to turn.

Perhaps this mysterious, opportunist Fun fact, this word (便宜) is often translated as ‘cheap’ (like I did before revision). Because it’s direct translation is cheap, it could also mean a small advantage or to let someone off easily. Shizun received some sort of enlightenment, and deliberately let Di Ling, an amateur reader, teach him?

The Evil Sect’s Young Master and Gu Feidi entered the House of Jade together. Gu Feidi would graduate in two years while the Young Master would be trapped in the House of Jade because he didn’t know how to read. He dreaded that this tale would be the hottest gossip topic in the whole Jianghu for years.

Or—no one knew how the Young Master passed the stone forest array, but since he accomplished that, he shouldn’t think about leaving, he shouldn’t continue bringing disaster everywhere in the name of the Evil Sect. The House of Jade would act as a hidden sect to help the world and save the people. This was also possible.

Without saying a word, he propped his chin like The ThinkerFamous sculpture by French artist, Rodin.. His thoughts traveled far and wide. 

Di Ling suddenly exclaimed, “Ah.”

She smoothed out her frown and chuckled lightly. “I understand now. Shizun is really considerate and really thought this over.”

Su Yang felt doubtful.

She insisted, “The one that will recite the manual for you will return soon…in fact, he is just outside of the courtyard!”

As soon as she finished, a very light footstep sounded just outside of the Lively Spring Garden.

Gu Feidi ran into the courtyard with his light movement skill. He held a thin manual in his arms, tightly against his heart. Joy filled his face, and his eyes were bright and sparkled like the starry sky. As soon as he entered the garden, his eyes locked on Su Yang.

“Young Hero Su, you helped me locate the Path to Home: Returning to the Nest. I will return this gratitude tenfold, no matter what.” Gu Feidi sincerely gushed, “If there is anything that I can do for you, please let me know. This one will spare no effort in completing the task!”

Su Yang: “...”

Gu Feidi, are you stupid?!

Did you just sell yourself for a mental skill manual!

As he bashed Gu Feidi in his head, he didn’t give himself the chance to make a verbal complaint. It was Di Ling who spoke up first, “What a coincidence, he just ran into trouble today that I couldn’t solve for him. Now we can only count on you.”

Ge Feidi lowered his excitement slightly before Di Ling and nodded. “Ling Shijie, please explain.”

Di Ling shared, “Su Yang has grown up in the Evil Sect since childhood, and he has some difficulties in reading. He needs someone to assist him in this. This is not convenient for me, so I will leave it to you.”

Hearing this, it stunned Gu Feidi. “This…”

Then he looked at Su Yang in surprise and asked, “You never read as a child?”

Su Yang: “...”

Alright! He is playing the villain role anyway, it’s no big deal to add one more ‘illiterate’ characteristic to his persona.

The helpless silence Su Yang gave was more than enough to confirm Gu Feidi’s suspicion. Instead of mocking or laughing at Su Yang, his expression turned softer. 

Gu Feidi glanced at the Blooming of the Nine Glacials manuals on the table and whispered, “If I recite the mental skill for you, I will gain a profound understanding of the practice. In the future, I will know the weakness of your skill. Even so, would you still want me to recite it for you?”

As soon as Gu Feidi pointed this out, Su Yang realised something.

—It turns out why Shizun ran around in such a large circle was to send the weakness of this mental skill into Gu Feidi’s hands. So there would be someone in the Jianghu who would restrain the Evil Sect’s Young Master in the future.

He thought about this for a while and felt there was nothing wrong with Gu Feidi learning the skill’s weakness. After all, he was destined to be defeated by the younger man.

So he said without a care in the world, “It doesn’t matter.”

Gu Feidi pondered for a moment and insisted, “The ancient manuals of mental skills are all actually written similarly. I will recite the first volume for you. You should not only listen but learn how to read yourself. I will teach you how to read the ancient sentence structure as well as widen your vocabulary on the more difficult words. You can try to read the rest of the volume yourself. This way, even if you encounter a higher-level mental skill in the future, you can practice it yourself.”

These remarks shocked Su Yang and he froze on the spot.

This...

Was this Gu Feidi’s legendary protagonist halo?

They were obviously on opposite sides, on hostile terms, not to mention he himself always provoked the other man. Yet, this child still had a pure heart and was willing to spend precious time to help a semi-illiterate like himself to lay the foundation. 

A warm and fuzzy sensation arose from his chest, and he thought, The protagonist is acting like a protagonist, easily making people feel grateful. If he wasn’t transmigrated as the Evil Sect’s Young Master himself, he won’t have the heart to hold onto this rivalry with Gu Feidi in the future. 

Di Ling suddenly chuckled, and her dazed gaze was slightly focused as she glanced at Su Yang’s heart, then lazily moved her line of sight away.

She said, “This is fine if that’s the case. If you encounter any additional problems in your study, please feel free to ask me.”

Then she got up to take her leave.

“Ling Shijie!” Su Yang called out, “I still have one more favour to ask of you!”

He took out his jade bell from his sleeve pocket and requested, “I want to enter seclusion in Lively Spring Garden starting tomorrow. I will be troubling you by bringing me my daily three meals.”

Gu Feidi looked at Su Yang in shock.

Di Ling was also surprised, “You just arrived at the House of Jade. Don’t you want to explore the area? The scenery here is said to be very pleasing. There is also the Pavilion of Infinite Knowledge and an open training ground, which are often the hangouts for the disciples. If you are determined on this, though it will help tremendously on your mental skills training, I am afraid it will hinder your martial arts knowledge.”

Giving her a gentle smile, Su Yang naturally said, “I will also polish my sword techniques during my seclusion. If I really need to learn from others, I have Gu Feidi here, right? I mean, they are not my opponents anyway, other than Gu Feidi. With him here, that’s enough.”

This reasoning was something he thought over with a lot of effort, with lines he drafted in advance for this very moment.

Di Ling thought for a moment, thinking there was nothing for her to refute, so she finally reached out and took his jade bell. “Alright, you can rest assured that I will bring you your daily meals.”

After the seclusion matter was settled, Di Ling turned around to leave. Su Yang also picked up his manuals while yawning and went to the east wing room.

Gu Feidi followed Su Yang and remained quiet all the way until they stopped on the stone steps of the east wing. He asked, “Does your current martial art technique require you to practice in the middle of the night?”

Su Yang was stupefied by the question and answered without thinking, “No it doesn’t.”

Gu Feidi asked again after a brief pause, “Why do you always practice at night until dawn?”

Su Yang explained, “I just can’t fall asleep at night. I have nothing to do anyway, so I practice instead. Did I disturb you?”

“No, you did not.” Gu Feidi answered. He frowned slightly and observed Su Yang’s expression.

After a moment, he added, “Now you are in the House of Jade, it is very safe here. You can sleep in peace. This way, you will have the spirit and energy to study your advanced mental skills during the day.”

Su Yang came to the same conclusion as well. It was not convenient for Gu Feidi to help him with the time differences. He couldn’t ask him to help him and also accommodate his night owl habits. It was too unreasonable.

So he nodded and promised, “I will try my best to change it.”